


A Groping Experimentation with Ideas

by forochel



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Crack, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: Yuuri paused and looked at the ridiculous line of eyeless smiling emoji in the blinking chat window on his screen.subjectre:re:enquiry: external access on lync???Hi Emil,No it’s okay, thank you for your reply. I can handle it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what this fic is. at first i just wanted to make business email jokes. and then this thing grew feelings and, like, _self-inflicted pining_. i'm sorry this is not pac rim au. 
> 
> please, for the love of all ye gods and little fishes, suspend all the disbeliefs. all of them. (uh, also, phichit says 'bitch' in an affectionate way at some point. fair warning)

**subject:** enquiry: external access on lync???  
Dear Emil,  
Just wanted to check if external users are supposed to be able to contact me on Lync? Sorry to bother you!

Best regards,  
Katsuki Yuuri  
Okukawa Design Studio

 

 **subject** re:enquiry: external access on lync???  
Hi yuuri, you have skype for business installed for client conferencing as requested by minako-san. We can block specific contacts if you are being harassed.

Emil **Nekola**  
_Anastasis IT Consultancy_

 

Yuuri paused and looked at the ridiculous line of eyeless smiling emoji in the blinking chat window on his screen. 

 

 **subject** re:re:enquiry: external access on lync???  
Hi Emil,  
No it’s okay, thank you for your reply. I can handle it. 

 

Another chat window pops up, then.

 _Emil is entering message..._ it says

Eventually, Emil says: if you’re sure :/ 

Yuuri sighs and types: yes, thank you emil.

***

Now, Yuuri would never have to be wracking his brain over this social dilemma if ... if ...

...if he had never ruined that Cialdini campaign the year before ...

...if he had never binged on that deceptively light champagne that one night at the Cannes Lions ...

... if he hadn’t banged out a series of mock-ups mocking Baiul & Baranovskaya’s Lions-sweeping work in one hallucinatory night more like a fever dream than ...

Well, not as much a fever dream as _Viktor fucking Nikiforov_ literally showing up outside the humble doors of Okukawa Design Studio, where Yuuri had retreated to rusticate. Yuuri would never let Minako-sensei know he’d called her doors humble, even mentally. She’d drop-kick him into the Sea of Japan. 

The last time Yuuri had seen him, Viktor had been on stage in Cannes and Yuuri had been trying not to simultaneously achieve spontaneous combustion and the first known case of gravitational collapse in a human being. 

“This place is so INSPIRING!” Viktor had carolled, even as Nishigori had held him back from dancing in through the sliding door like some kind of Disney princess who had no idea how Japanese doors worked. “Look at the sakura! And the snow! Where is Katsuki Yuuri?” 

Yuuri, who at that point had been halfway stuck in the supply closet and thus had rather shamefully identified Viktor Nikiforov’s presence _by voice alone_ , scrambled the rest of the way into the closet. Minako-sensei pulled him back out by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him to the door.

Flinging it open (and sending Nishigori stumbling into the bonsai plant artfully arranged on top of the antique lacquer cabinet old Aoyama-san had bequeathed them), Minako shoved Yuuri forth and crowed, “Here he is!” 

Viktor Nikiforov, Yuuri thought dazedly, was even more tooth-achingly gorgeous from one foot away than across an entire atrium. 

“Yuuri!” declaimed Viktor. “I want you to be my graphic designer!”

***

The _))))))))_ s had turned into _(((((((((((((((_ s in the time that Yuuri was emailing Emil.

He felt his heart clench. Frozen in place, hands twisted into the front pocket of his hoodie, Yuuri watched the messages blink into existence on his screen.

 

19 May, 2016  
**Viktor Nikiforov** [18:43]  
Yuuuuuuuuuuri  
**Viktor Nikiforov** [18:44]  
Yuuri?  
**Viktor Nikiforov** [18:45]  
Yuuuuuri (((  
**Viktor Nikiforov** [18:49]  
...okay, fine. have it your way.  
Yuuri I love the aesthetics for the latest data visualisations you sent me but there’s still something missing, they need to be simple but nuanced. Can you call me? 

Yuuri took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, forcing all the air out of his lungs. 

Okay, this he could do. Business. If he gave even the barest of inches, Viktor would come barrelling right over the shaky lines Yuuri had drawn in the sand, several inches into Yuuri’s finely drawn sense of propriety. Probably. He’d flown all the way to Hasetsu, backwater town in Kyushu, a Japanese island better known for shochu, earthquakes, and a cute bear mascot, to look for ... Yuuri, after all.

***

It should have made Yuuri feel good, the way Minako-sensei and Viktor had immediately fallen to squabbling over him:

“No, he’s mine!”

“He doesn’t belong to _you_ , he’s a person!” 

“He’s my precious student and I refuse to release him to a weird gaijin!”

“Wow!” 

Instead, he’d started feeling like becoming a supermassive black hole was imminent again, and had wiggled out of Minako’s sensei’s grasp to go do his breathing behind his desk, clutching the poodle cushion that’d been named Vicchan after his actual poodle, Vicchan, named after his mother’s favourite boyband V6 (“I would have named her after Jun-kun, but your father would have been jealous, so I named her after all of them!”), and trying to calm the hell down. 

Minako-sensei and Viktor had come to a compromise, in the end. 

Or rather, Minako-sensei had sensed a great business opportunity, and Viktor was every bit the maverick he was reputed to be. So they’d shaken hands on a promise for Okukawa Design Agency to provide creative design services to Baiul & Baranovskaya, Viktor’d departed to “make some calls, smooth things over on my end, you know how it is”, and Yuuko-chan had given them all a very speaking look before sitting down to write up the paperwork.

***

Much to Yuuri’s horrified joy, Viktor had stayed in Akatsuki Yuutopia while getting the campaign groundwork set up.

“Phichit,” Yuuri whispered; the walls of the ryokan were thin and Viktor was only a corridor away. “Phichit, I should never have left.”

“Don’t say that!” Phichit laughed. “You’ll make Celestino cry into his cannoli again!” 

“Oh no,” said Yuuri sadly. “Has it come to that?”

“Yes, his blood pressure’s gone up again because his wife is making super healthy meals in retaliation.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Yuuri, thinking of the alarming shade of red Celestino’s face turned when he was angry and low on carbs. “I’m the worst. Oh god, Phichit, _I’m the worst_ , this campaign is going to fail, why did he even _come here_?” 

There was a long, reproachful silence. It ballooned out of his phone and expanded to all four corners of his room. 

“I’m going to see you at the Lions again this year, Yuuri,” said Phichit finally. “Because we’re entering my campaign for Creative Data, amongst other things, and I sure as hell believe you’re gonna be there too. Come on, Viktor Nikiforov wants you on his team. Why don’t you trust his vision, huh?” 

Yuuri muttered unintelligibly. “We don’t have the data, Phichit. I can’t ... I got so used to working with you. You know, I asked him about SEO the other day and he kind of just ... tilted his head at me, smiled, and wandered offI have no idea how Viktor’s team works!” Yuuri’s getting louder with his resentment. “Sometimes I think it’s just him and him alone and that’s just crazy!” 

“You sound happy, Yuuri,” Phichit said, which was crazy talk too. 

But after they’d hung up, and Yuuri had curled around Vicchan, the real thing, he’d realised with a flush and a merrily thumping heart, that he was.

***

**subject** : Follow-up: Infographic Edits  
Hi Yuuri,

Thanks for the call, I understand it’s late in Japan. As discussed, here are the edits to be made:

  1. See attached for most updated figures - to incorporate 
  2. Trends - combining Figure A1 & A2 in a more ... swoop-y way. 
  3. See attached (2) for sketch of what I wanted for the fusion thing 



Yuuri took a deep breath, popped out the email window, and dragged it into his secondary monitor. The smaller one. Then he opened up Viktor’s sketch, and twitched so hard he almost knocked over the succulent that Guang Hong, their intern, had shyly given him one day. 

It was ... it wasn’t easy to forget that Viktor had famously been a creative before switching famously into accounts on a whim and still _winning all the awards_ , but every time Yuuri saw his art - the clean, powerful lines of his draughtsmanship, even in a rough sketch more meant to convey an idea in the fastest way possible, always managed to take Yuuri’s breath away. 

Having been a creative, it also seemed, had not made Viktor any more sympathetic to the travails of receiving requests that were both vague and specific at the same time. 

He sighed, exchanging significant looks with Leo, their new designer. He’d been brought in as of one week ago, Minako-sensei having presciently declared that the positive rep they got just from working with Ba&Ba would bring in more work than their outfit of 5 would have been able to handle, and had been thrown right into the deep end with three simultaneous jobs. In this short period, Leo had acquired a miniature army of succulents from a smitten Guang Hong. 

Ah, thought Yuuri to himself, young love.

Turning back to his email, Yuuri continued scanning down the list of edits and matching them to his scrawled notes, before getting to the very mysterious end: 

 

Best,  
Viktor

 _Baiul & Baranovskaya_  
[O] +7 8-499-003-21-81 [DDI] +7 8-499-553-91-01 [FB] facebook.com/ba&ba [IG] ba&ba [T] @babaknowsbest  
www.baiulbaranovskaya.org

_The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited_

 

It seriously annoyed Yuuri, sometimes, that he didn’t know what Viktor’s official designation was. Why didn’t _anyone_ want to let him know? And this purposeful deletion of only part of his signature - what the hell was Viktor playing at?

***

Spring that year had been schizophrenic. The snows had melted away soon after Viktor’s arrival, and the turning of the year had announced itself with another, conclusive explosion of sakura blossoms.

The cool, salty sea breeze ruffled Yuuri’s hair as he perched, knees drawn up to his chest, on seawall. During sakura season, Hasetsu sometimes smelt like umeboshi. It should have been a comforting scent, but it wasn’t; guilt warred with irritation within Yuuri. 

He’d learnt in a very short time that Viktor, for all his beauty, had a sharp tongue - the verdict was out on whether he knew it was sharp or not - that had a way of slicing right to the heart of Yuuri’s many issues. So Yuuri had walked out of their meeting earlier, ignoring Minako-sensei’s sharp _Yuuri!_ , ignoring the urgency of putting this creative brief together, ignoring the sneer on the face of Viktor’s surprise intern.

The sighing of the sea across the beach did nothing to muffle the tap-tapping of handmade Italian shoes coming up the pavement towards Yuuri.

“Ah, here you are,” said Viktor from behind him. “Boo.” 

“Hi,” said Yuuri flatly. 

Viktor sighed, and sat down next to him. Yuuri winced a little, inside, at the thought of those probably tailored trousers coming into contact with the mossy surface of Hasetsu’s humble seawall. 

“I’m sorry,” said Viktor, and it surprised Yuuri. “I don’t ...” 

“Think?” Yuuri suggested. 

Letting out a short laugh, Viktor said, “That. Yes, but also, case in point.”

Yuuri tilted his head in question. 

“See, that ... I haven’t been used to, in a long time. You push back against me in ways I can’t anticipate.” 

Knowing the creative industry, Yuuri thought this highly unlikely. Viktor’s arrogance was staggering in person, if somewhat deserved. 

“You - you never react the way I think you will,” Viktor said lightly, looking out at the sunlight dancing over the gentle waves. 

“I never react the way people want me to,” Yuuri muttered into his knees.

Viktor hummed in response, then said, “You shouldn’t have to react that way people want you to. That’s good.” 

It made Yuuri flush all over, which was the only reason a plaintive “Why me?” fell out of Yuuri’s mouth. 

Viktor let out an explosive breath of air. It seemed to Yuuri that all this man did around him was sign. “Why you, huh. Oh, Yuuri, when I saw your mocks of my campaign, I laughed harder than I have in a long, long time.”

“... so I make you laugh?”

“Yes!” Viktor said, then quickly backpedalled at the look on Yuuri’s face. “No - I mean, not in that way! This campaign, you know ... Baba isn’t really known for working with non-profits. I needed a breath of fresh air, and then there you were. Like destiny.” 

Sometimes, and bearing in mind that he’d only really known Viktor for a smattering of days, Yuuri wanted to grab Viktor by the shoulders and yell, “BE SPECIFIC!!!”

***

Staring at the email invite he’d been sent, hot on the heels of the latest round of revisions, Yuuri gave into the urge to slide down his chair, under his table, and curl up like an armadillo for a bit.

“Yuuri-senpai!” Guang Hong cried, distressed, and attempted to crawl under the table with Yuuri. “Oh no, oh no, what should we do? Leo!” 

Leo went to get Minako, the traitor. 

“You have to learn to do this eventually, you know,” said Minako-sensei, after hauling Yuuri out and into their tiny conference room. She’d adopted a motherly tone; it didn’t really suit her. “Talking to people.”

I talk with my art, not my _mouth_ , Yuuri thought rebelliously, and said, “But, Minako-sensei, I can’t.”

“Of course you can!” Minako-sensei dropped the act. “You’re my precious student! And who is going to take over this place when I retire, huh? I’m getting on in the years, you know!” 

“Don’t say that, please,” sighed Yuuri. “No one ever believes you. And anyway, it would be Yuuko-chan.” 

“Well,” said Minako-sensei. “That is true. But don’t you want to move up in the world? Don’t you want to be a butterfly, to spread your wings and fly away? You have more ambition than this, Yuuri.” 

And that is how Yuuri found himself in business class, on Viktor Nikiforov’s ticket, to Beijing. The wonders of business class were entirely lost on him, though, as he spent the entire seven hours hunched over his laptop resentfully making frantic changes to the deck and wishing a thousand deaths on the in-flight wifi, with an hour’s hopeless wandering in Pudong.

***

The thing was that whenever Yuuri’s frustration threatened to boil over into tunnel vision hatred, his brain would helpfully provide memories of:

  * Viktor being a surprisingly quiet companion on the walk home to Yuutopia 
  * Viktor making great friends with Vicchan, who had doggily good taste 
  * Viktor’s unabashed delight at making the acquaintance of the many neighbourhood Olds 
  * Viktor drawing an ongoing comic series of the Nishigori triplets as superheroes (they’d absolutely dissolved into tears the day that Viktor had left) 
  * Viktor looking up to catch Yuuri’s eye, as Yuuri stood in the doorway watching him and the girls like a creep, and smiling slow and warm 
  * Viktor helping to fold towels, jinbei, restock toiletries, clear dishes, convince Yuuri’s parents to at least create a listing for the restaurant on tabelog 



It was this last one that, Mari’s furious whispering of _put a ring on that man_ while they beat futons under the sun aside, made Yuuri’s frustration recede like the tides. 

“He’s _folding towels with my sister_ ,” Yuuri had hissed down the phone at Phichit one rosy evening. 

“Not that I don’t appreciate these live updates of Living Legend Viktor Nikiforov in your house, darling,” said Phichit. “But what is the problem here? Is he very bad at it?”

Yuuri paused, and resentfully said, “No, he’s _not_. He listens to Mari-nee, so he’s actually okay at it.”

“Well then —”

“Why is he so _perfect_?” Yuuri had then wailed, and rolled over to bury his face in his pillow.

***

“We talk business tomorrow,” Viktor told him on their way from the airport.

Yuuri’d been touched that Viktor had come to fetch him, and even more so when he realised that Viktor had arrived two hours earlier than him and waited for him anyway. 

He was less touched when Viktor continued, “Tonight, we drink with our clients.” 

Yuuri could feel the blood drain away from his face. Chinese business dinners were famed as much for the furious networking that went on as being absolutely drenched in alcohol. His only hope was that their clients were transnational and not actually Chinese.

But of course, it was not to be.

“I thought it was a joke, Nikiforov!” laughed Cao Bin, regional director of the organisation they were working for. He was really quite red in the face. Redder than Yuuri’s own father when he really got going. “When we saw your creative team.”

“Ha, ha,” said Viktor, knocking back another tiny cup of Mao Tai. Yuuri was getting _concerned_. 

“Yes,” Li Jian, one of the campaign coordinators, said solemnly. “Why would you need to go all the way to Japan to find a graphic designer? Don’t we have enough in China?” 

Yuuri froze, chopsticks halfway to his mouth; his tang yuan plopped back into the scaldingly hot ginger soup. 

Cao Bin reached over and slapped Li Jian upside the head. “Don’t you mind him, Nikiforov! I saw your fake campaign, Katsuki. My wife laughed for days when I showed it to her!” 

Yuuri decided that he liked Cao Bin, though he wasn’t sure how he’d carry on as though business were normal during tomorrow’s presentations. Not when he’d swayed his way up to the stage, and was now singing along to a song that Li Jian, as an _extremely suspect_ olive branch, told Yuuri was about the singer’s love being his small, small apple, who lights many fires in one’s life. 

Based on the way Cao Bin was bellowing the sound _huo_ many times, Yuuri had learnt the Mandarin for ‘fire’. 

“That,” Viktor pronounced, “is _a good song_.”

“Viktor,” said Yuuri, clutching desperately at the back of his shirt. “No.”

Spinning around, Viktor draped himself over Yuuri and gleefully said, “Viktor, _yes_.”

“I see how it is,” Li Jian said blandly, eyeing them. 

Yuuri felt his eyes widen in horror. “No you don’t! This isn’t what it looks like! — oh my god, Viktor, stop taking your clothes off!” 

Rising to his feet, Li Jian started pulling his blazer on. “I usually leave when the spontaneous nudity starts. Good luck with him.” Cool as a cucumber, he said, just as he was turning away, “And I’ve seen the fake campaign too. It was good.”

***

Yuuri had only ever heard reports of Viktor drunk before, in Hasetsu.

He would go jogging by Kobayashi-san, pottering away at her flowers, and she would say, “Ah, your gaijin was up late with my Hayato and his friends yesterday night. They say he drank enough to slay a lesser man!” 

Or, at the ramen stand for lunch, Okada-san would give Yuuri an appraising look and say, “You know, it’s good to have someone who can keep up with you. He may be gaijin on the outside, but he has the liver of a man from Kyushu.” 

Or, Hasegawa Kanako of Yuuri’s Junior High nightmares, terrifying as ever, telling Yuuri that Viktor had drunk several bottles of her best satsuma-imo shochu and then having the nerve to compare it unfavourably to vodka, before drinking several more and leading the entire bar of salarymen in an impromptu karaoke session of Arashi songs. Yuuri hadn’t even known Viktor knew Arashi existed.

Or, most mystifyingly of all, from Mari-nee, who’d obliquely said over beating the futons, “Do you know Viktor starts quoting sad Russian poetry when he’s drunk?”

Yuuri had done a double-take. “When have you seen him drunk? How do you know it’s poetry?” 

And Mari-nee had said, “Oh, you were doing overtime in the office and he was feeling lonely. And because I recorded it and asked Siri. It really was quite sad, though.” And then she’d given Yuuri a significant look.

To which Yuuri had nothing to say, not when Viktor had so evidently bribed his way to Mari’s approval through the doing of chores, and so he took his feelings out on the futons.

***

Viktor wasn’t quoting sad Russian poetry at him, Yuuri didn’t think. Babble like that didn’t sound poetic in the least.

After Cao Bin’s truly paradigm shifting performance, he’d helped Yuuri manhandle Viktor out of the restaurant, stop Viktor from stripping again once they were out in the sweltering heat of Beijing in June, and pour Viktor into the cab. Being the perfect host, despite all the inflicted trauma, he’d also told the cabbie where to go, saving both her and Yuuri the pain of listening to Yuuri sound out the name of their hotel, which he’d transcribed into katakana. 

“Yuuuuuri,” crooned Viktor, whom Yuuri had tipped over to lean against the window. “Why are you so far away?” 

“I’m not.” This was objectively true. There was about a foot of space between their legs, what with how Viktor had slid into an bonelessly elegant sprawl.

Peering coyly at Yuuri from underneath his lashes, Viktor said, “But we were so close, just now.” And as a total non-sequitur: “Let’s go to a club!” 

Yuuri wasn’t being paid nearly enough for this. “No, we’re going back to the hotel.”

Grown men shouldn’t be allowed to pout like that. “Yuuri is so cruel,” Viktor complained, before closing his eyes and subsiding. 

It probably wasn’t just Yuuri’s imagination when he saw the sympathetic look that their cabbie slid him in the rearview mirror. Leaning into _his_ corner of the taxi, Yuuri watched the neon lights of Beijing slide past, and the way they dappled over Viktor’s reflection in the dark window.

***

The creative brief had been written by Viktor and his team over Skype meetings (riotous), in consultations with Minako-sensei (equally riotous), and with occasional input from Yuuri (not riotous _at all_ ).

He hadn’t anticipated - no one had, really - the arrival of Viktor’s intern, whom he’d apparently forgotten about in the mad rush to get to Japan. 

“You _hired me_!” shouted the blond kid. 

“Ah,” said Viktor. “So I did.” 

“Yakov sent me,” snarled the blond kid.

“Oh,” said Viktor, and didn’t continue, but his face said: _shit_. 

And that was more than Yuuri really wanted to know about the inner workings of Baiul & Baranovskaya, except he’d be _lying_ , because all his professional life he’d longed, in a formless, hopeless way, to be on one of the creative teams in the Big Four. Celestino’s firm had been great - a boutique making waves in digital marketing, but Yuuri wanted _traditional_ media too, wanted it all and to stand amongst best. 

Yuuri would have been a little more worried, but Yuri Plisetsky’s ideas were all rough around the edges, and his art had a frantic, angry quality to it that suited only very specific products. And Viktor kept on making him do typical internship duties, which wound him up even more, which made Yuuri feel sorry for him. 

“He’s so boring, Viktor,” he’d overheard Yuri complain once, voice carrying out of the conference room. “We can handle this on our own, come on.”

“You’re not opening your eyes wide enough, Yura,” Viktor had told Yuri, and that had made Yuuri wonder about _his_ own eyes. 

Were they wide enough?

***

Putting Viktor to bed went surprisingly easily, all things considered. No one’s honour was unduly besmirched, and Yuuri even got Viktor to brush his teeth and down an entire complimentary bottle of water. The hardest part was when Viktor suddenly clung to the ends of Yuuri’s jacket, eyes earnest but mouth slack.

“You take such good care of me, Yuuri,” he said, and Yuuri abruptly felt like an awful human being. 

“No,” Yuuri protested, disentangling Viktor’s fingers from his jacket. “It’s just ... anyone would.” 

And what was one to do when a beautiful man you have just tucked, drunk, into bed, looked desolately up at you and muttered something throaty and mournful and completely incomprehensible, but squeak out a hasty good night and run away?

The next morning, of course, Viktor appeared at breakfast perfectly put together and wearing sunglasses that probably cost more than the new Wacom tablet Yuuri was lusting after. Viktor’s choice of breakfast: plain congee, roasted barley tea, and savoury beancurd, made Yuuri feel slightly better about justice in the world, though. 

Out of courtesy, Yuuri chewed on his fried noodles and asked, “How are you feeling?” 

Viktor looked up from his beancurd and tipped his sunglasses down. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. “I’ve been better. Thank you for not leaving me at the restaurant.”

“I would never!” Yuuri burst out, horror at the very thought obliterating his filters. 

Bad mistake: the slow, warming smile made an appearance, and Yuuri could feel himself flushing all over when Viktor, still smiling, said, “I’m glad.” 

This distracted Yuuri sufficiently until they were walking down the corridor to the conference room their clients had booked for the presentations. The corridor, which seemed both endlessly long but too short, and the walls of which seemed to be pressing in on Yuuri. He was distantly aware that his breath was coming shorter and shorter. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor stopped in the corridor and put his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders. He was so _tall_ , Yuuri thought inanely. The warmth of his hands through Yuuri’s blazer was bizarrely grounding. “You don’t have to ... I’ll do all the talking in there, okay? So you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Feeling obscurely hurt, Yuuri opened his mouth, but Viktor barrelled on.

“They might have questions that only you can answer, though, so ...” 

Yuuri blinked up at Viktor. “You can trust me,” he said.

Viktor smiled down at him. “I know.”

***

Mankai, the apogee of sakura blossoming season, had just ended when Viktor had started looking at tickets back to St. Petersburg.

“You mean you bought a one way ticket here?” Yuuko asked incredulously; being thrifty and a mother of three, she never bought tickets that weren’t return, on offer, or air miles eligible. 

Viktor shrugged. “I wasn’t sure when I’d be done here, and open jaw was even more expensive.” 

“Don’t you have a standard timeline for creating the brief?” 

“Ah, well,” Viktor said airily. “It was getting _started_ that I wasn’t so sure about.” 

Later, Yuuko whispered to Yuuri: “Do you know what this means, Yuuri?”

“That’s he’s insane and insanely rich?” Yuuri replied, stressed out by reviewing the creative brief for feasibility. 

“No,” Yuuko hit him upside the head. “It means he was willing to stay for as long as it took to get you on board, Yuuri! He really wants you!” 

“Great,” Yuuri had deadpanned, and gone back to circling particularly outrageous proposals and writing ？？？ next to them.

***

With just an hour separating their flights out of Beijing, Viktor decided they both deserved victory drinks in the business lounge.

“I’m so glad they liked it.” Yuuri sighed in relief, slumping into his armchair. It was modelled after the Chesterfield style, all plush leather and deep buttons, luxuriously deep and perfect for falling asleep in. Flying business was amazing; he didn’t know how he’d ever re-adjust to economy class after this. 

Viktor smiled at him, that warm smile that made something fizz in Yuuri’s belly. “You did amazingly.”

Their drinks arrived, then: a whiskey highball for Yuuri and an Old Fashioned for Viktor. 

“I thought I was going to vomit on Cao Bin when he asked me why I chose that colour palette.”

“But you were amazing,” Viktor said reassuringly. “Which is why I’m standing this round.” 

The therapeutic effects of his armchair were such that Yuuri felt no compunctions about saying, “Sure, not like you can’t afford it anyway, _Director of Creative Communications_ ”, as meaningfully as possible.

Viktor blinked at him. “Ah, it was on the slides.” 

“Yes,” said Yuuri drily, sipping at his drink. He’d had better, to be honest, or perhaps he was just used to the cleaner profile of Japanese whiskeys. The post-adrenaline lassitude allowed honesty, so he asked, “Why did you hide it from me?”

“You know, I can’t remember any more,” mused Viktor, distractingly running the lip of his glass over his mouth. “It’s just one of those things I started off doing because I thought it was funny, and then it stopped being funny but I just carried on.” 

Yuuri stared. 

“Well, I didn’t find it funny.” 

“You found it annoying,” Viktor said. It didn’t sound like a guess. He sighed. “I’m sorry.” And then he laughed. “You know, I don’t remember apologising this much in my life before.” 

Leaning forward to put his glass down, Yuuri asked without thinking, “Is that a good thing?”

He felt the weight of Viktor’s considering gaze on him almost like a caress. Looking up, he fell almost immediately into the dizzying pull of Viktor’s blue, blue eyes.

“I think so,” Viktor said so lowly it was almost a purr. There was a clink as he put his drink down on the table between them. Yuuri realised, abruptly, that he’d tilted his head unconsciously, and that their faces were close enough for Yuuri to see faint freckles atop Viktor’s cheeks. The muted sounds of the lounge melted away around them, Yuuri’s heart beating his ears; the air seemed viscous as honey, the thrumming tension between them a tangible thing. 

And then the boarding call for his flight snapped him back into reality.

“This is ... inappropriate”, Yuuri said, drawing back quickly, and downing the rest of his highball. 

Regretfully, he watched Viktor’s face close off, and his chin tilt up. Yuuri stood up, slinging his carry-on over a shoulder, and reached out to rest a daring hand on Viktor’s shoulder.

“Minako-sensei will probably send me to London for the final meetings?” He hoped that Viktor couldn’t feel the way his fingers were trembling slightly. 

“I’ll see you there,” Viktor promised, gaze heavy on Yuuri’s face.

*** 

Once Viktor had bought his plane tickets out of Japan, he’d gone into overdrive mode.

“I didn’t even know there was another level to reach,” easy-going and stolid Nishigori had said, awed, at the frenetic pace at which Viktor tried to reach obsessive perfection.

Minako-sensei seemed to delight in this, humming happily as she argued loudly with Viktor about the creative direction for their campaign in the tiny conference room, pulling Yuuri haplessly in whenever they needed a third opinion. Yuuri definitely felt in over his head, and like his brain itself was being stretched as he tried to wrap his mind around the scale of the things they were discussing. As was quickly becoming familiar, he teetered ever on the point between overwhelming anxiety and overwhelming joy.

With an end to Viktor’s time in Japan within sight, overdrive mode also was applied to what Yuuri could only call Viktor’s quest to absorb everything about Kyushu ever.

“Yurio,” Viktor caught the boy’s attention one Thursday evening, along with everyone else’s, as he wheeled his rolly suitcase across the office with him. Mari had dubbed him so upon his arrival at Yuutopia, citing potential confusion. “Can you organise the latest notes on the strategies we discussed during the meeting just now? And do the standard suite of market comparisons. When can you get this done by?” 

Yurio scowled at him. “I’m already working on it.” 

“Excellent! Email it to me oh, tomorrow morning?” 

“What about Mila? She’s the digital person.” 

“So she is,” said Viktor. “Well, Monday, then. But send me what you have without her input first.” 

“Where are you going anyway, old man?!” 

“Kagoshima!” Viktor beamed at them. “Toshiya-san told me all about the pork the other day and I decided I simply had to try it! Do you want to come along, Yuuri?” 

This was hardly the first time Viktor had tried inviting Yuuri along on one of his trips of discovery when he should have known _full well_ that thanks to him, Yuuri had a Koyasan-sized amount of work to get through. There’d been the Takachiho spiritual tour, the atmospheric Yufuin no Mori train experience, and worst of all the invitation to _tour other onsen towns_ in Saga. 

So Yuuri had just been about to level Viktor with the most dead-eyed look, when Minako-sensei had burst out of her office specifically to strong-arm him into spending three whole days in close contact with Viktor Nikiforov in the name of client relations and some ulterior motive that Yuuri hadn’t even wanted to _think_ about.

*** 

At some point in the run-up to the final meetings in London, Yuuri fell ill. Something about the combination of stress, the heat wave that was sweeping over Kyushu, and a long night dancing outdoors for Obon.

Leo, who frankly was an angel sent from the many heavens above, below, or in a pocket dimension, covered for him during the three long days Yuuri lay on a futon in his room, the western-style bed too stifling, with a cool pack on his forehead and a fan blowing cooled air from a basin of ice into the room. 

Those three days were the only time in Yuuri’s life, as far as he could remember, that he regretted living in an onsen ryokan. 

Three days, Yuuri lay stricken in bed, getting up only to wash and eat, before giddiness took over again and he had to lie back down.

Three days, Yuuri didn’t turn on his laptop or check his phone.

Three days basically off-the-grid, and that was apparently enough to make Viktor Nikiforov go batshit crazy. 

“Oh my god!” Leo exclaimed when Yuuri slid the studio door open. “Yuuri! I’m so glad!” 

“Uh,” said Yuuri, stepping through and closing the door behind him. “Hi?” 

“It’s been so _terrible_ ,” lamented Guang Hong, who did indeed look peakier than normal. Yuuri was worried; was he going to fall victim to the heat, too? 

Joining them in the tiny reception area opposite Yuuko’s work-station/kingdom, Yuuri tilted his head in silent enquiry.

“I don’t know how you work with him, dude,” said Leo, slightly crazy-eyed. “At first I was, like, kinda awed by him?”

“Ah,” said Yuuri.

“Yeah, no, that wore off after the first five minutes _straight_ of Yuuri-this and Yuuri-that. It was all the demands after that.”

“...Ah.” Yuuri’s heart sank slightly. 

“To be fair,” Guang Hong said thoughtfully, if a little desperately. “He has a very specific vision.” 

“Well,” said Leo hotly, “Viktor and his vision can go and —” he cut himself off, darting a look at Yuuri and standing up. “Argh, anyway, it’s good to have you back, Yuuri. I’m glad you’re better now.” 

As such it was with some trepidation that Yuuri booted up his computer. Almost immediately, a Lync window popped up.

 

19 August, 2016  
**Viktor Nikiforov** [08:57]  
is that a yuuri I see? you’re back?  
are you feeling better? they told me you had heat exhaustion?

 

Yuuri stared; it had to be the dead of the night in St Petersburg. 

 

 **Yuuri Katsuki** [08:58]  
why are you awake? i’m better, thank you. 

**Viktor Nikiforov** [08:58]  
yuuri!! ))))) working, of course.  
and I was worried, you know.  
I read about the heat wave in the news. you must take better care of yourself, yuuri ((

 **Yuuri Katsuki** [08:59]  
it was because of obon. i was part of the traditional ... ritual dance.  
but i guess it was too hot for me after being in america for so many years. 

**Viktor Nikiforov** [09:00]  
dance? obon??  
...oh, wow! wish i could have been there for that.  
maybe i could have fanned you )))

 **Yuuri Katsuki** [09:03]  
Maybe. you should go to sleep, Viktor.

 **Viktor Nikiforov** [09:04]  
well, if you say so. have a good day, yuuri.  
i’m glad you’re back )))

 

It was unfair, Yuuri thought, as Viktor’s status bubble went from green to grey, how a chat conversation could make him feel this way.

*** 

19 May, 2016  
 **Viktor Nikiforov** [18:15]  
Yuuuuuuri ♥ i miss your office, st petersburg is so cold in comparison  
[18:17]  
 _Viktor Nikiforov wants to send file: maccachin800.jpg_  
look at my dog!  
her name is Maccachin if you remember and she’s the best dog in the world  
[18:20]  
except vicchan of course.  
does vicchan miss me?  
))))))))

*** 

Viktor’s team plus Yuuri were being put up in the Hilton near Euston station, a Victorian affair in understated luxury catty-corner from St Pancras church, across the street. There was a - a service, or some kind of community event happening inside when they’d arrived for check in. Yuuri stared up the street at the great wooden doors as bellhops loaded their luggage onto a trolley.

“Those aren’t usually open,” one of the bellhops said in a thick, rolling accent when he saw what Yuuri was looking at. “Have a look later, mate, and you’ll see a wee door in the big one on the left.” 

Yuuri certainly hoped he’d be able to, but it was late November and they had only five days to get final approval on the campaign - their clients were hoping to start rolling out phase one during the Christmas season proper, capitalise on the spirit of giving and good cheer, apparently. This, of course, had been entirely lost on the team at Okukawa Design Studio, Christmas being an entirely commercial endeavour capitalising on the spirit of romance and profit-making in Japan. 

“Well,” Viktor had shrugged. “Honestly, we don’t really get it either. Russian Christmas happens later. But it’s a good point, accounting for cultural differences. Let’s table that for later.” 

In the here and now, though, with the warm amber light spilling out from the church under a slate-grey London sky, Yuuri totally understood why Christmas could inspire Westerners to join in ‘the spirit of giving and good cheer’.

“I definitely will,” Yuuri told the bellhop. “Thank you.” 

Next to him, red-headed Mila laughed. “You’re so adorably _polite_ , Yuuri! Come on, let’s get in out of the cold.”

*** 

It took three days for them to get the final approval - so that was three days of presentations, of Yuuri hunched over his laptop and tablet in his hotel room furiously making edits as they came in via text, email, and - in one memorable case - a furious Facetime, and of a truly prodigious amount of coffee from the business lounge in the Hilton plus an unending supply of baked snacks from the Sainsbury’s in Euston. Yuuri was pretty sure he’d put on an entire kilogram just by stress-eating his way through a small child’s weight in seasonal lemon and white chocolate cookies.

“Drinks tonight,” announced Viktor on the third night, when they’d all got back. “Briefings tomorrow.” 

And so they all decamped to The Cider Tap, a dark, crowded pub right across the main road from the Hilton.

“Of course,” Georgi said morosely into his celebratory pint of cider. “When they say final, they mean ‘all right, let’s get a move on, but at any point in time we’ll still change things’.”

Yuuri nodded sympathetically into his own celebratory cider - something the lady at the bar had told him was a local craft brew, “local all the way to the West Country!” before laughing. Yuuri had nodded, smiled, and scurried back to the table they’d managed to claim as soon as he could. 

“Which is why Yuuri here - and his studio - are still on retainer for the next few months!” Viktor beamed at Yuuri. 

“It’s not _my_ studio...” Yuuri muttered. “Anyway, what can I help with now? Were you expecting the go-ahead so soon?” 

“Eh,” Viktor shrugged enigmatically. “Well, now, you get a holiday on our dime. You should go to a Christmas market!” 

At which point everyone else piled in with a discussion weighing the relative merits of various European Christmas markets, and Yuuri sank back into his seat and let their excited voices wash over him.

***

Later that night, Yuuri found himself alone in the corridor with Viktor, the rest having peeled off to their own rooms.

They hadn’t, Yuuri realised at this point, actually been alone together in the past few days, not like it’d been in China. Viktor was occupied with an email on his phone, but the proximity alone had a nervous buzzing start up under his skin.

“Viktor,” started Yuuri hesitantly, “About the Christmas market you mentioned earlier...” 

“Mm?” hummed Viktor absently, thumbing at his phone, brows furrowed. “Oh, yes, I’ll send you the location once I’m done with this.” 

“I,” Yuuri swallowed, before forging on. “But Viktor, what if I get lost? What if they don’t understand my English?”

Viktor glanced up at that, eyes blank before registering what it was Yuuri was actually saying and the faux-innocent widening of his eyes, and laughed. Yuuri’s accent, honed in America, was miles clearer than Viktor’s own. 

“All right,” Viktor said, eyes crinkling. “We’ll go together. It’s a promise.”

*** 

Unfortunately, the briefings that Viktor’s team was holding for the various departments of their client organisation ran long over the next few days, and Yuuri was left largely to his own devices.

Which was not, objectively, terrible: he was in London, ostensibly on a business trip, and had a disposable income. 

So Yuuri made his pilgrimages to the two Tates; spent an afternoon sketching in a warm, little cafe he’d found by almost tripping down some steps from Tavistock Street on his way back from after a particularly exhilarating morning at the newly opened Design Museum; and, excitingly, once got called into talk to Ba&Ba’s production department over Skype. 

Viktor made a little time for him every night anyway, after team dinners, just to listen to Yuuri babble about the art he’d seen that day. 

“But what about you, Viktor?” Yuuri’d asked, the very first night they’d sat over drinks in the hotel bar.

Viktor’d laughed, light and easy, and it’d made all the hairs on the back of Yuuri’s neck stand. “I don’t want to talk about work, Yuuri. I’d rather learn about your day.” 

And so this night, after Yuuri’d actually been called into their client’s headquarters in Holborn, and it seemed like there was still all of London for Viktor’s team to brief, Viktor looked as close to drooping as Yuuri had ever seen. Even in Hasetsu, with equally - if not more - pressing deadlines and this campaign on the line, Viktor had been - manic, when he got tired. 

“I’m sorry, Yuuri,” Viktor said, and he did look very much so. Yuuri’s fingers twitched with the desire to push his hair out of his tired eyes.

“It’s okay,” said Yuuri. “It’s a free holiday anyway, right? I don’t mind working.” 

Viktor managed a smile and shook his head.

Yuuri was confused, until Viktor said, “On Saturday. I promise, on Saturday, we’ll go together.” 

And that — oh, that made Yuuri melt.

***

“Oh my god,” shouted Phichit on Saturday morning. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’re _going on a date with Viktor Nikiforov_ , you bitch!”

Yuuri winced and leaned over the back of the chair to turn down the volume on his laptop. 

“Shhhhhh, it’s not!” 

“Like hell it’s not! Yuuri!”

“He’s just showing me around! It’s my first time in London! It’s ... it’s ...”

“Then,” said Phichit triumphantly, “Why are you wearing your fuck-me jeans?” 

Speechless, Yuuri stared at Phichit. Yuuri _was_ wearing what Phichit liked to call his fuck-me jeans, but only because they were the only comfortable travel jeans he had; worn so soft that they moulded to his contours like a second skin. 

“Whatever,” Phichit said dismissively. “Did you bring your red sweater? You know, the one that made Troy from Finance spill his wine all over Mrs Vaughan last Christmas.” 

“That did - that was not - oh my god, Phichit, _no_ , I packed for _work_.” 

“Okay, well, that’s probably for the best anyway.” Then Phichit grinned horribly at him. “You don’t want to cause embarrassing accidents on your date. Though I guess that’d be a pretty good chance for you to —”

Zipping himself into his one and only hoodie, Yuuri reached out for the laptop and said, “Good _bye_ , Phichit," before gently closing the lid. 

***

The thing was, it all did seem horribly like a date. Horribly, terrifyingly, wonderfully like a date. Yuuri was very good at lying to himself, but not when he walked into the lobby and there Viktor was, smiling that slow and warm smile at him.

Not when Viktor led him to the upper deck of the 168 to Camden Town (“so we can look at the roofs going by, I love looking down at the tops of buildings”), and not when Viktor tucked Yuuri into his side as they squeezed their through the crowd thronging the warren that was the Stables, and Yuuri let him.

Not when Viktor was helping Yuuri pick out frosted blown-glass ornaments and spicily heady potpourri in festive cages shaped from thick twisted wire as omiyage; not when they stumbled upon a stall hawking funny woollen hats and Viktor insisted on buying a navy blue one with little peaks like cat ears for Yuuri; and not when Yuuri was visibly tiring and Viktor sat him down on an honest-to-god wine barrel next to a store selling brightly coloured jackets that purported to be from Kathmandu before disappearing, and returning with cups of mulled wine and two roast hog sandwiches, dripping fat hot over his ungloved hands. 

Not even when, somewhere in one of the twisting passages below-ground, Viktor spotted a didgeridoo vendor and Yuuri, laughing so hard he almost cried, had to physically hold him back from making an extremely bad life decision.

***

The sky was a deep, cloudless blue when they finally emerged into open air, and the stiff chill in the air a shock to the system. It felt a little like waking up from a dream. 

Yuuri took a deep breath, anyway; the cold in his lungs was a relief after the body-warmed heat of the Stables. 

“Well,” said Viktor, swinging their hands together. Yuuri’s heart ached with how much he wanted this to last forever, but how? They were based halfway across the world from each other, neither of them could speak the other’s native tongue, and most crucially, Viktor was still technically Yuuri’s (firm’s) client. Today had been an indulgence; he shouldn’t have flirted Viktor into bringing him here; this had to be all. 

"-uuri? Yuuri?” 

He finally surfaced from his thoughts to find Viktor looking at him, concerned. “Ah, sorry. What were you saying?” 

Viktor cocked his head at Yuuri. “Well. I was asking if you wanted to get dinner here, or back near the hotel.” 

Yuuri blinked at him. “Um,” he looked around. “The...hotel? I’m not very hungry yet.” 

They wound up in a local Italian restaurant, after a leisurely walk back. Yuuri had seen it on the corner of Tavistock Place and Marchmont Street on his way to Holborn the day before. The restaurant was all warmly lit interior, flickering candles in squat mosaic holders, and teasingly courteous middle-aged waiters in black aprons who memorised your order without notepads . This was undeniably date-like. Yuuri despaired; he’d thought it more of a family-style restaurant. 

The owner _was_ speaking in rapid-fire Italian with a family over by the door. Yuuri smiled down at the table - it reminded him of Celestino, who had the tendency to start shouting in Italian at his computer whenever it declined to do his bidding. 

“What is it?” Viktor asked curiously. 

Which led to Yuuri telling all the funny Celestino Cialdini stories he could think of, and Viktor sharing Yakov Feltsman stories in return. This took them through their shared pear, arugula, and shaved parmesan salad and entrees - pumpkin risotto for Yuuri, who was already missing rice, and veal for Viktor. As a bespectacled, white-haired waiter cleared their plates and served up a square of tiramisu the size of Yuuri’s _face_ , Viktor grinned impishly at Yuuri. 

“Can you imagine, can you _just_ imagine - what if they _joined forces_?” 

Yuuri smiled helplessly back. The sharp angles of Viktor’s face were softened in the low, hazy, yellow light of the restaurant; and his untethered playfulness made Viktor look young, puppyish almost. “I think they’d self-destruct. They’d go out yelling.” 

“That’s how they’d want to go, I think,” Viktor said, licking his spoon clean of cream. 

Yuuri gulped. 

“No, I’m pretty sure Celestino would rather go out drowning in cannoli.” 

Viktor barked out a laugh. “Well, if it’s death by dessert, it’d be syrniki for Yakov, then. He doesn’t really have a sweet tooth, though.” 

“I do,” said Yuuri, and quickly closed his mouth around another spoonful of tiramisu before he said anything more inane. 

But all Viktor did was lean his face in a hand and smile at him like he knew a secret Yuuri didn’t. It made Yuuri flush for what was probably the millionth time since Viktor had barged into his life. He wondered what they looked like to the other restaurant patrons, to the people passing by in the street outside the big, clear windows they were sat next to. He wondered how he was going to walk this back without hurting Viktor’s feelings. 

It was inevitable, then, that on the walk back, Viktor drew to a stop outside the nearby gardens and tugged Yuuri around to face him. 

“I really enjoyed myself today, Yuuri,” Viktor told him earnestly. “Thanks for inviting me along.” 

Yuuri closed his eyes briefly - even when Viktor wasn’t insulting or critiquing his work, he still managed to cut right to the heart of the truth. Yuuri hadn’t managed to fool Viktor at all, not with all his oblique flirtation. When he reopened his eyes, Yuuri found that he couldn’t look at Viktor at all. His gaze skittered off the planes of Viktor’s cheeks, thrown into sharp relief by the street lamps, to the glossy black spokes of the fence behind Viktor. 

“Ah,” murmured Viktor. “I see. Still inappropriate?” 

Yuuri jerked his chin up to look directly at Viktor, expecting anger; expecting recrimination. 

“Okay”, said Viktor, his smile a melancholy little thing. “Okay. I’ll wait for you. 

Speechless, a knot in his throat, Yuuri watched as Viktor raised a hand to cup his face. Willing Viktor to understand the tangled morass that Yuuri was still trying sort out for himself, Yuuri pressed his cheek briefly into the soft leather of Viktor’s glove. 

Viktor let out a slow breath, eyes piercing on Yuuri’s face. “Yeah, okay.” He took his hand away, and Yuuri forcibly stopped himself from swaying after it. “Let’s go. It’s getting cold.” 

***

In the six months After London, as Yuuri had privately dubbed that particular event horizon —

(“You’re such a nerd, Yuuri,” Phichit said affectionately, when Yuuri used those words precisely, and before Yuuri could protest, he’d continued, “But clearly it works for Viktor, so you’re doing something right. Talk physics to me, baby?”) 

— in the half a year that followed, Yuuri watched as the campaign rolled out phase by phase, as it swept across the world and gained a life of its own on social media, reaching even Hasetsu.

“Oh look,” he overheard Sasegawa-baa-chan tell her grandkids one day, “It’s Yuuri-chan’s artwork!”

“So pretty,” said little Tsu-kun wonderingly. “What’s it for?” 

Yuuri hurried on before he could hear Sasegawa-baa-chan try to explain nuclear fusion to a five-year-old best known to the town for walking into everything. He’d walked into _Viktor_ ’s shins, once, and calmly bounced off before widening his eyes at Viktor’s sheer foreign-ness and bursting into tears. 

Thinking of Viktor now didn’t make Yuuri burst into tears. Viktor’d returned to his long distance modus operandi of flirtatious chat messages and Maccachin photographs, interspersed with work emails and Skype conferences. Yuuri sometimes thought that the serious look in Viktor’s eyes that wintery London night had been a hallucination, the way Viktor so carefully treaded the line between professionalism and flirty warmth.

And then he received his invitation to Cannes, and Yuuri’s brain went into overdrive. 

It would be different this year, he knew that: what with the buzz that the campaign was generating not just in ad circles but politically; the features that his design had received in industry magazines; the way Celestino had called him one afternoon and bawled, “I’m so proud of you, Yuuri!!!” with Phichit shouting “See you at Cannes!” in the background. 

He’d managed to push away most of the fear of disappointment again, in the face of his professional growth over the past year. No, what was making him anxious was:

21 May 2017

**Viktor N. (Ba &Ba)**  
I look forward to seeing you in Cannes )))) 00:12  
have you been to any of the beaches? 00:13  
bring a bathing suit! )))) 00:13

no, i was preoccupied last year. 00:15

all right. 00:15

look forward to seeing you too 00:20

and the epiphany that Okukawa Design Studio’s contract with Ba&Ba would formally end by the end of May.

So distracted was Yuuri by his thoughts that he almost fell out of his chair, a mere week before flying off for France, when Minako stomped over to his cubicle and threw one of Leo’s succulent army at him.

“Mi-Minako-sensei!!!” Yuuri yelped. “That’s dangerous!”

“What’s dangerous,” Minako threatened, “is going to be _me_ if you don’t stop mooning over your Russian boyfriend instead of working on the Mugen account!” 

“I - no - what - he - Viktor’s not my boyfriend!” spluttered Yuuri.

As one, the entire office yelled, “ _Whaaaat?_ ”

“WHAT do you mean he’s not your boyfriend?”

“You text him _all the time_ , man!” 

“One time you wanted to show me a picture of Vicchan, but it was his poodle instead!” 

“Wait,” said Leo, turning to look at Guang Hong. “Really?”

“Oh gods,” moaned Yuuri, and sank under his table. “Please kill me now.” 

For a lady in her fifties, Minako was terrifyingly strong. She grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him upright. “No death. Only work. Everyone else - shut up and get back to work!”

***

One good thing about Minako being secretly a middle-aged She-Hulk was that Yuuri didn’t have to haul her luggage about for her.

The bad thing about this situation was that Yuuri was captive audience to her interrogation for the 16 hours flight from Osaka to Nice.

“What do you mean you aren’t dating that man?” hissed Minako over her third glass of the complimentary champagne. She’d lasted the amount of time it had taken them to take the train to Osaka, check in, board, taxi, and take-off. 

“I don’t want to talk about this, sensei,” Yuuri hissed back. He wasn’t sure why; he was pretty sure the attendants on a _Lufthansa_ flight weren’t going to be fluent in Saga-ben, even if they knew standard Japanese. 

“Too fucking bad, Yuuri,” Minako sensei said, draining the last of her glass. “Because half the reason I signed that contract was to get you a man.”

Having given into the madness, Yuuri choked on _his_ own champagne. “Minako-sensei! Don’t say things like that!” 

“All right,” she said reasonably. “Maybe ten percent.” 

“Not. Helping.” 

“I don’t understand, though. Is he not interested? I’ll kill him if that’s the case.” 

“No murder necessary, sensei.” 

“Then what’s the problem?” Minako peered at him across the aisle for a long moment while Yuuri tried to emulate a rock. “Oh, no. Yuuri. What did you do?”

Yuuri stared at her mutely. She sighed and stretched to ruffle his hair. 

“Okay then, you’ve got ... 15 hours to think about it. I suggest you do.”

***

True to form, Yuuri did anything but actively think about it: he caught up on American television shows, read a book he’d bought from the Design Museum six months ago and not got round to reading yet, worked on the branding concept for a pottery workshop two hours away from Hasetsu by train, and let his lizard brain chase its tail in circles about Viktor.

This, and jet lag, probably, were to blame for how the festival went by mostly in a blur, even when their campaign _dominated_ the Lions categories they’d entered for, and their exhibition booths were inundated for seven days straight, and Minako-sensei had cried because of what this meant for Okukawa Design Studio’s global profile. 

Yuuri didn’t even fully register it when Yuri Plisetsky very un-angrily and very excitedly introduced a tall, austere-looking man as “Otabek-my-friend-the-DJ, you know, the one who did the tracks for our media spots? Ugh, never mind, you’re like, being gross about Viktor again”. 

Which — even if that were true — should not be held against Yuuri. 

Viktor was dressed for the summer heat of Cannes; all devastating open collar, luxurious linen, and honeyed smiles at Yuuri. That, Yuuri was certain of down to his toes, was Viktor’s private charm offensive, embedded within the larger, more superficial one aimed at what seemed like the entire city. 

The bare bones of a plan were slowly resolving themselves in Yuuri’s mind, over the week, and Yuuri instinctively kept an _appropriate_ distance between them; a distance that Viktor respected, even if his eyes snapped dangerously after several glasses of a particularly rich Côtes du Rhône as the sun set over the sea one evening, and Yuuri deliberately put Mila between the two of them. 

“Playing hard to get?” Mila laughed quietly into her glass, dipping her eyelashes at Yuuri. 

Yuuri smiled at her. “Something like that.” 

It all came to a head at the closing gala, just as Yuuri’d wanted. Or, well, not quite. 

Buzzed on rosé, high on sleep deprivation, and with the thumping bass of the house music in his veins, Yuuri yanked Viktor in by his tie (Marc Jacobs, very skinny, paired with a really obnoxiously well-cut Ozwald Boateng suit).

“Now,” he said, savouring the way Viktor’s pupils were already dilating. “You can ask me now.”

Viktor’s lips parted, tongue flicking out to wet them, and Yuuri unconsciously swayed closer. 

“I ... I’m leaving Ba&Ba to start my own agency.”

Stopping in his tracks, Yuuri blinked. “...Eh?”

“Come be mine,” said Viktor, blue eyes warm on Yuuri’s face. “My designer, I mean. And — and mine, too.”

Mind reeling, feeling _entirely_ derailed, Yuuri babbled, “I - yes, of course -”

The way Viktor’s face had lit up the moment Yuuri said yes made Yuuri melt entirely into Viktor’s waiting arms, even as he continued, “But, but, agency? I can’t - Minako-sensei? My accounts? Hasetsu? ” 

“I want the independence. And I’ll ask her for permission again,” Viktor declared. “I’ll _fight her_ if I have to.” 

“You silly boys,” said Minako-sensei, looming up out of nowhere. “I’m in the market for a name partner, as it so happens. Okukawa & Nikiforov sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”

**Author's Note:**

> apologies are probably in order:  
> 1\. the working title of this fic was 你是我的小啊小苹果. i'm sorry for inflicting the terrible crack that is the apple song on you. please have some [chinese soft-rock](https://youtu.be/DyNAC5Ulfw8?list=PLtJenMbedrM1Y555u8t3bvHt8QCVLmvuR) instead  
> 2\. to people who work in the industry: *japanese dogeza*  
> 3\. i tried to figure out how to indent the emails without having the ugly blockquote line appear. i gave up. i'm weak, i know.
> 
> alsowik, for any londoners out there who are outraged: yes I know the cider tap is now the euston tap but I DON'T CARE, IN THIS SOFTER WORLD THAT KUBO-SENSEI HAS CREATED, THE CIDER TAP IS **ETERNAL**.
> 
> alsoalsowik, don't ask me how leo got a work visa for a tiny design studio in kyushu. in this softer world, japan has looser visa regulations. viktor won't have to be a russian mail order husband. yuuko will still be a name partner eventually. i've put too much thought into this crack fic.


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